Gibeon and the /Khowesen: Remembering anticolonial resistance – Namibia
City Tours
Talita Fransizka Bangarah, Reinhart Kößler and Tamen Uinuseb, 2024
Today, Gibeon (!Khaxa-tsûs) is a municipality in the Hardap region in the South of Namibia with c- 4000 inhabitants, 70 km south of the regional capital of Mariental, situated close to the Great Fish River, a seasonal water course with at times dramatic floods. As a permanent settlement, Gibeon goes back to 1863 when Kaptein Kido (Cupido) Witbooi of the /Khowesen settled there. After the dramatic times of the late 19th century, Gibeon became a district capital under the German colonial power and the official residence of Kaptein Hendrik Witbooi (Auta !Nanseb) when he had been forced into a ‘protection treaty’ by the German colonial power in 1894. In 1904, Gibeon was the starting point of the Nama-German war (1904-1908).
After the genocide, Nama could only slowly return after the war, and under South African rule (1915-1990) the Witbooi regained a precarious foothold in the Krantzplatz Reserve adjoining Gibeon townlands to the North. During this long period, they doggedly held fast to the precarious opportunities they were offered to defend communal cohesion. In the 1970s, with the adherence of important Nama leaders to SWAPO, Gibeon became the ‘capital of the South’ for the liberation movement. It was an important center of schooling.
After independence, the settlement was incorporated into a municipality and the center of a constituency for the Hardap Regional Council. It remains the traditional capital of the /Khowesen.
Contact:
Talita Franziska Bangarah: fbangarah(at)gmail.com
Reinhart Kößler: r-koessler(at)gmx.de
Tamen Ui-nuseb: tamen.c(at)live.com
References:
Helbig, Ludwig / Hillebrecht, Werner: The Witbooi, 1992.
Jod, Petrus A.: "Das Witbooi-Volk und die Gründung Gibeons", in: Journal of the SWA Scientific Society, vol XVI, pp. 81-98.
Kössler, Reinhart: In Search of Survival and Dignity. Two traditional communities in southern Namibia under South African rule, 2005.
Wallace, Marion / Kinahan, John: A History of Namibia. From the Beginning to 1990, 2011.
Witbooi, Hendrik: The Hendrik Witbooi papers, 2nd ed., 1995.
Stationen
Gravestones of the Kapteins Cupido Witbooi and Moses David Witbooi
Hoornkranz, settlement ruins and church foundation
Memorial stone for the Victims of the Hoornkranz Massacre,12 April 1893
Foundation of Hendrik Witbooi’s house in Gibeon
/ai/aseb battlefield area, Vaalgrass area
Bed of the Great Fish River
Shark Island Concentration camp
Former Homeland reserve headquarters of the Witboois, Krantzplatz
Former SWAPO Headquarters